This Jane Austen blog brings Jane Austen, her novels, and the Regency Period alive through food, dress, social customs, and other 19th C. historical details related to this topic.

Driving the Stags: An Old Custom in Lyme Park, Chesire

Copyright (c) Jane Austen’s World. Lyme Park in Chesire is best known today as the exterior of Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice 1995. The house, situated near the village of Disley, was the principal seat of the ancient family of Leghs, whose ancestor fought bravely in the battle of Cressy. Once a hunting lodge, the building dates back to Elizabethan times. Its classical facade was designed in the 1720’s by the famed Venetian architect, Giacomo Leoni. The lake made famous by Colin Firth’s dip was once the source of a cascade, or a staircase with water running down it, from 1703-1818.

The vast moors and lands of Lyme Park housed herds wild cattle and fallow and red deer, which had roamed the area for around five hundred years. Lyme Park’s stags were famous for their size and fierceness, but their wildness did not prevent them from being driven annually across the water. The two sources below do not list the reason for this custom, but one imagines it was to drive the herds to “greener” pastures.

Manners & Customs of all Nations

CURIOUS CEREMONY OF DRIVING DEER THROUGH THE WATER (FORMERLY PRACTISED) IN LYME PARK CHESHIRE

(For the Mirror)

ORMEROD, in his splendid History of Cheshire, says, “The park of Lyme, which is very extensive, is celebrated for the fine flavour of its venison, and contains a herd of wild cattle, the remains of a breed which has been kept here from time immemorial, and is supposed indigenous. In the last century a custom was observed here of driving the deer round the park about Midsummer, or rather earlier, collecting them in a body before the house, and then swimming them through a pool of water, with which the exhibition terminated.”

Driving the stags, a view of Lyme Park, 1745. Engraved by F. Vivares after a painting by Thomas Smith. Notice the differences in details between the print and the painting.

There is a large print of it by Vivares, after a painting by T. Smith, representing Lyme Park during the performance of the annual ceremony, with the great Vale of Cheshire and Lancashire as far as the Rivington Hills in the distance, and in the foreground the great body of the deer passing through the pool, the last just entering it, and the old stags emerging on the opposite bank, two of which are contending with their forefeet, the horns at that season being too tender to combat with. This art of driving the deer like a herd of ordinary cattle, is stated on a monument at Disley, to have been first perfected by Joseph Watson, who died in 1753, at the age of 104, “having been park keeper at Lyme more than sixty four years.”

In connexion with these deer a very curious custom prevailed at Lyme from earliest times, namely, the driving of the stags at midsummer across a pond, called the Stag Pond — now no longer in existence. This performance was attended by a certain amount of ceremony, it formed a species of entertainment, and neighbours and friends from a distance were invited to be present and to take part in the chase. Vivares,* in a print after a picture by T. Smith,| still preserved at Lyme, represents the stags swimming across the pond, those in the foreground emerging from the water and fighting with their forefeet, the horns being in velvet : in the background are the ladies and gentlemen following the hunt on horseback, dressed in eighteenth-century costume. The print is inscribed :

A View in Lyme Park
With that extraordinary Custom of driving the Stag,

5 Responses

Cheshire is a very beautiful part of the country. I have a soft spot for that part of England. I was at school in Shropshire, the county next to Cheshire, for three years and it’s not too far from Liverpool and Manchester. They are great cities with great people. Liverpudlians are all natural comedians with a very dry wit. Think John Lennon.

But Chester, the main town in Cheshire is always worth a visit. It is an ancient Roman town still with it’s walls and many Roman ruins.

The stag gathering and culling at Lyme Park, I have heard of but I’ve not been there. Great post. I love it, Vic.

For my sixtieth birthday, it’s a couple of years away yet by the way, I want to go further north from Cheshire and walk the Coast to Coast walk made famous by Alfred Wainwright.It is through some beautiful English countryside starting at Robin Hoods bay on the Yorkshire coast and finishes at St Brides Head on the coast of The Lake District in Lancashire. It’s meant to be one of the best walks in the world.One hundred and twenty miles. Any body up to coming with me?? I need the company.

This is a new one on me. Coincidentally, I was writing about Lyme Park in my latest story when I saw the title of your latest post. Maybe I can figure a way to put driving the stags into the text. :) Thank you.

Tony, if you let me know when you are doing it, I’ll see if I can fly over there. I’ll carry your supplies (water, etc.) in my car.

Thankyou for this info about Lyme Park. I live in Manchester which isn’t far from Cheshire and it has given me an idea of asking my other Jane Austen/Regency friend (regency & english country dance partner) an idea of vising there soon and dream we are visiting Pemberley. As a child my parents took me there but the most I can remember is a picture of some deer posing for the camera. I think a visit is well over due.

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Hello, my name is Vic and I live in Richmond, VA. I work in program and professional development at Virginia Commonwealth University, and I have adored Jane Austen almost all of my life. I am a proud lifetime member of the Jane Austen Society of North America. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. I do not accept any form of cash advertising, sponsorship, or paid topic insertions. However, I do accept and keep books, DVDs and CDs to review.

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